Nov. 11, 2011

Welcome to the final installment of the “What on Earth?” Climate Change Conspiracy Theory Week. If you haven’t seen our earlier installments, please use the links at the bottom of this post to satisfy all your climate change conspiracy needs.

Today we begin with a question: What convinces a person that human activity is changing our climate? If you are like me, you are convinced anthropogenic climate change is a virtual certainty because that is the near-universal consensus of the experts who have most closely studied the topic. Further, that consensus was achieved via the work of thousands of scientists over many decades.

I could offer many rebuttals supported by quotes from experts, but then What on Earth? does exactly that on a regular basis. How about this for an answer: scientists don’t care about P.R., or selling the public on a grand idea. They just care about science. We’ve all heard of the “absent minded professor” cliche, but I don’t think I’m too familiar with the “Persuasive, P.R.-saavy, master communicator professor” stereotype. Although that might be just what the fight against climate change needs right now.